The votes have been counted and the winner of last week's Performance of the week with 35.94% of the votes goes to Tim Willis with his wildly 36 for the 3rd XI at Sawtry! Silver performance goes to Charlie Morrison with 31.25% of the votes for his fine half century for the Auzzies in the Unofficial Ashes!!

The Skip for the day Slicker won an impeccable toss. With Jnr Ram; Elliot Smith and Senior Ram; Damo Clarke opening for the 2’s. Sadly for Damo a low score dovetailed with his last; out for 7. Ell’ is joined by Slicker who take the score on steadily, before Matthew slaps a horizontal pull ‘too early’ to a short mid-off, out for 17. This bring in: Q ‘whats that coming over the hill’’? Is it a Monster….for some pulls and biffs before he’s out for 9. Prob’ thinking it’s too hot for a big lad out here in the middle wearing 3 layers and sweating like a “tramps vest at the dry-cleaners”…Our Steve’s back in the shade for a cool down and a sit on his spot on the bench. Next up is our youngest star of the last 2 seasons; Jordan Caff’ and Elliot Smiffy; have us completely in awe with shots to all areas of the ground and of all shots selected out of the batting text book. To be honest after ten mins we probably knew there was precious little batting for the rest of us for this day. We were running out of spare balls as some terrific shots through over and past the conker trees sees Jordi hit 71 off 62 balls before he’s out cursing himself with a century a distinct possibility. Real shame that. Elliot is joined by Rob ‘ body sculptured woman melter’; Menarry has Ell’s pace in single running up 100%. Rob taking the score on nicely with Ell before a mix-up sees Rob off the blocks speedily and Ell’ sending him back for a few ‘hard stares’ and a traipse off for Rob. Ell’ crashes a 2 for his 100, and only the 2nd for the season (the other by 1’s-Luca Stewart), so far for any of the three teams. Tom (Wood) goes out for a little leg stretch; 45 overs up Rams on 255-5. Elliots 108 off 124 balls a splendid showing. UFFORD PARK - REPLY. ‘Nick-not-Pagey’ supported by a very proud Dad, and his drinking Buddy, turn up the volume from the Pavo’ as Nick gets a beaut’ to take the edge of Ross Keymer; early doors caught at slip by Senior pro’ Damo. Both bowlers bowl tight but Manny is replaced early [Skip taking it easy on Ed] in the heat, but also to try Ash Wells to see if we can get into Andy Larkin early up. The plan was halted as Andy strives back to the pavo for box and thigh pads…not like he’s batted much eh? Ash get in a short delivery and a steep riser first up, but Andy is a top players and he bats a long time and there’s some crashing shots as Ufford bring themselves into the game steadily. Missing Vinnys’ guile we see the game slipping before Jordan gets a be-a-ut-i-full’ LBW to take Andy L. Plus 4 other Wkts Jordan is bowler of the day, followed just by Nick who takes 2-34 off 12, awesome effort you guys in that heat . And Jordan a 5-for off 8 overs [5-25] a great spell. Tom Burns [nee Wood] has a little ‘leggy tweaker-for 2 wickets at the end wrapping up the tail Tom takes 2-13 of 16 balls ace! We win soundly for Vinny. Ufford Park; 170-all out. Se you next week Pop-Pickers ----and Seam Pickers. Wellsmeister

Ramsey 3's travelled to Sawtry with a proper 3rd XI side. With the toss won Buddle Jnr elected to bowl on a track with pyramid shaped stumps behind the lines on a misbehaving wicket. Although there were moans of going out in the heat the decision looked a good one with Tim ‘The Ringer’ Willis striking almost immediately with the new ball to take his first wicket of the day. 4 balls in and 1 down without scoring Sawtry were looking shaky. With this on came the captain himself opening with his (3 overs maximum) seam up a few interesting short balls obviously shook the batsmen up and unofficial willow was able to grab a second wicket.

6 Overs in and about 45-2 Sawtry were looking to build a base and Buddle Jnr was looking for the oxygen. Here came the introduction of ‘The better Hutchcraft’ Marcus with the ball starting to hoop and although some broughton-esc beamers were bowled and a clean bowled not achieved because of a front foot no-ball he finally got settled and found a wicket. Sawtry were however looking to gain a foothold by this stage and the decision to take pace off the ball with new signing A Hayden and Sam ‘The Official Willow’ Wilson was taken. It worked wonders as the scoring rate slowed and 3 more wickets were gained. Well in to the tail and with some genuine walking wickets in bat some simple on the stumps bowling was needed and Chris ‘The Slayer’ Parkins did just this with 2 wickets in his 4 overs for the cost of only 6 runs. The final death bowler was young TJ Harding who got some serious turn and bounce in his 2.2 overs and took the final wicket to leave Sawtry 155 all out.After a great showing in the field the simple instruction of ‘everyone get 15 and we’ll get this’ was clearly ignored by almost all the top order as Ramsey collapsed to 11-3 after a duck by Hayden, 4 from Gogsy, and 7 from Martin. A brief partnership started to develop nicely between the other Parkins and Ollie ‘Slick Rick’ Wilson. However after that ended the Rams looked to be on for a quick return home. In step the skipper who played a strong captains innings for a solid…4 balls before top edging high up to cover. Ramsey now 50 odd for 6 and seemingly out of batsmen needed a miracle to get anywhere near the 155 set by Sawtry. In step the factor 50 sun cream needing duo of Tim ‘Chanderpaul stance’ Willis and Sam ‘I have two shots’ Wilson. The fallen batsmen sat in awe as the ginger pair pumped the Sawtry bowlers all over the ground and both achieved personal best scores of 36 and 33 respectively. However this wasn’t quite enough and the final drinks break brought the last wicket of Sam Wilson to leave 133 all out, 23 runs short of what they needed.

It was still a good showing for a side without any supposed ringers (although Tim would now like to be considered one) and with some batting practise the team definitely has the potential to grind out victories without the previously much needed help from above. Man of the match winner Tim Willis has specially requested that everyone (especially Vinny) is made well aware that he got 2 wickets and took a catch in the deep and hit 36 runs including one ‘HUGE’ six. Runner up to the award Sam Wilson also got two wickets, 33 runs but dropped a DOLLY after his brother Ollie Wilson had miraculously caught two from behind the stumps. Viva La Ram!!

A glorious day at Cricketfield Lane saw the visit of Barnack CC. Having won the toss Rams elected to bat on a hard wicket, quick outfield and a 10 man strong fielding side!An early dismissal of Elliot Smith (0) saw Matt Slack (31) hit the middle early! Such was the case with Damien Clarke's batting, hitting a quickfire 52 before being bowled. Jordan Cafferkey also made light work of the spin and seam attacks hitting a creative 66 before being bowled by the spinner. Quick wickets of Manchett (3) and Burns (0) saw Australian Mark Nicholls hit the English wicket. A quality display of batting saw him romp up a rapid 54, hitting fences and trees beyond the confines of the boundary before Shahid the spinner hitting the poles once more! More was to come from the spinner as he mopped up the end of the innings with 3 more wickets. Rams finishing on a respectable 251 all out.

The sun still honing down on the field, the Rams opening bowlers Nick Page (1 wicket) and Mark Nicholls started to chip away at Barnack's attacking batting style, seeing away the top three batsmen for no more than 25 runs, including a catch from Tom Burns. Was the time when Mark started to crank up his Aussie fast bowling and saw Rams' slip cordon hoping not for a late cut and fizzing head height rocket from "the quickest bouncer the Ramsey wicket has ever seen"! Softening up the attack gave Mark 3 wickets for the match and a quality bowling spell of 12-1-65-3. With P.Best(45) going well, the skipper turned to himself and the spinners to do the deeds. With D.Ashraf producing a baseball style 45, Woodward was glad to strike the pads of the batsmen and twas the end of the biffing saga which was starting to get close to the required run rate. Woodward gained the crucial wicket of P.Best, with a catch off his own bowling. S.Best then came to the crease and played well for a decent half century which brought Barnack closer to the target. With J.Cafferkey racking up a cheeky 1 wicket haul Rams were struggling to find the last two wickets and a timely change of bowling attack from the skipper saw the introduction of Ash 'Big Bird' Wells who racked up the pace once more and took little time in completing the Ramsey win with 2 wickets in 2 balls! Overall a quality display of cricket from the Rams and a fine individual display from Mark Nicholls with 54 runs and 3 wickets

A good 20pt win for the Rams 2nd XI which sees them leapfrog Barnack in the table and nestle 5th in Hunts 1. On the back of three successive wins and a run of form the Rams now play second placed Huntingdon (A) and top of the table Blunham (H) in consecutive weeks to try to close the gap on the title.

Just a reminder to let you know about the Ashes cricket match this Sunday 14th July.Ramsey ‘old boys’ will be taking on a Chris Morrison Australian team made of up of very young and old players. It is a 1pm start & 40 overs followed by an evening BBQ.The Aussies will all be at the club on Saturday night before for pre-match drinks.